All families create a culture of how things are done, how love is communicated (or not), and what the expectations are for who you are becoming as you grow into adulthood. We all have our own very unique brew of life experiences from our separate home countries - which gives shape to our beliefs about how things should be, or perhaps how we expect they will be even if they aren't, when we get into a relationship.

Unlike gifts under our tree during the holiday season, this New Year gift will be unwrapped, one day at a time for the next 365 days. I anticipate great things. I'm like that with the mail too (US Mail and email both). Sometimes when I open the mailbox there is something so amazing awaiting me... be it a love note from my sweet Teresa, a picture of my best friend's son, a video of my nephew Jake making a full-court last second basketball shot before the buzzer sounds...well, you get the picture.

Today was another one of those great-surprise days. A former class participant of mine sent a video link that I am now going to pass along to you. This is 16 powerful minutes of happy - that made me appreciate the easiest gift of all... a smile that says, "you are perfect just the way you are." I think you'll find this 16 minutes worth your time. The video is after the jump.

I am 46 years old and have been with women for most of my adult live with many failed relationships under my belt. I've lived with four other partners. I've been seeing a woman for just four months now. She's 40 and two years out of an 18 year relationship (her ex cheated.) They have an 11 year old daughter who lives most of the week with the ex who is her biological mother, and two days a week with my partner. I know in my heart, my gut, in ever cell of my body that this is the woman I've been waiting for my entire life. So how long should I wait to start talking seriously with her about living together? I'm a flight attendant and gone a lot. She's a chef. We both have active lives outside of out relationship and are best friends to one another. And my sister, with whom I'm very close, loves her. She's gotten the thumbs up from my entire family and all of my friends. I've gotten the same on her end. I'm ready now to start talking and planning living together.

She's a bit hesitant because of her daughter. Her ex is now living with the affair. Am I being impatient? We spend every night that I'm in town at my place or hers together. I have two cats that she loves and checks on when I'm gone. I adore her daughter. Her daughter really likes me a lot. Help.

Congratulations on finding "the woman you have been waiting for your entire life." It sounds like you are enjoying one another, and sharing all of the free time you have in common. Life is good, right? It sounds like her daughter is warming up to you, and your cats are warming up to her. This is all so fantastic!

Now, what's the hurry again?

Of course we don't actually carry lesbian identity cards. That would be silly. The process is really much more efficient than that. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles provides an endorsement that is placed directly on our driver's license.

Ask your gay and lesbian friends if you can see their driver's license. If they are really gay (meaning they passed the Gay or Lesbian Endorsement Test at the BMV), there should be a faint rainbow that is visible over his or her photo when held at the right angle, in the right light.

Okay, so that's not really true.

Can you imagine if there was such an endorsement? I can see it now - we will all be provided with a government created, computer generated test. I'm thinking the Lesbian Endorsement Test might look something like this (remember, this would be created by the government):

My ex and I were together 13 years and we just broke up last month. I have met someone new and while I'm not in love, I am enjoying the distraction and want to continue seeing her. My friends are encouraging me to be single longer - some say up to a year. What do you think I should do?

The answer is after the jump.

I try my best to stay on good terms with my exes. I wouldn't say we always end up friends but we can at least see each other and have a decent conversation.

However, it's different with one person. She's my first love, she's with someone else. And lots of things used to eat at me about them, about us but now she just frustrates me. I want to tell her to get the fuck out of my life and that I get opportunities too, I just choke every time.

It's been this way for years. It started when we were together, and I eventually came to the conclusion that I didn't want to tell her to fuck off because I was so in love with her.

But now we're not together. It's so simple for me to just say fuck you and fuck off, but I don't, I just stay there letting shit come up until I eventually get frustrated and I'm the one who ends up sad. Why is it that after being so strong before and so able to just tell my significant others in past relationships "This isn't working, get away from me" I seem to be stuck? Why can't I find the strength and motivation to just tell her to leave me alone?

Dear F-Bomber,

Your question starts with "I try my best to stay on good terms with my ex's" and it ends with "Why can't I find the strength to tell her to leave me alone?" And all I can discern from the middle of your question is that you are still in love with her.

After being together 5 years and occasionally adding a third person, my partner and I played separately for the first time this weekend. As he put it, "It's only sex, what matters is that we came home to each other." I'm feeling pretty bad that I had sex with someone else. Is this a feeling I should be having or should I be looking at the situation with the same open mind he is? Maybe I'm just being jealous. I'm not sure.

Relationships are complicated. Open relationships are very complicated.

If open play (together) feels good to both of you and it has worked without any issues, perhaps that's the boundary that works best for you. If separate play (without the other present) feels bad, then be honest with your partner and let him know that it is not something that you enjoy.

I was going through our phone records when I saw a number that I did not recognize. My girlfriend text messaged this number over 350 times in 2 days. When I asked her who it was she said it was a co-workers. I checked the number and found out it was her ex's. We broke up for a bit, but still communicated because she was still getting stuff out of my house. We had been in a relationship for almost 4 1/2 years.

When we decided to work things out I asked her about her hanging out with her ex. She has been caught in several lies about what happened. We have been back together for a little over a month and I am having a hard time trusting her. I know that everyone deserves a second chance, but this really sucks. A lot of her friends are friends with her ex (one just called me by her ex's name yesterday by accident).

How do we or should we move on with this relationship?

I asked out my best friend last night. She said yes and we kissed for the first time. We only have a week and a half left of school and we live in different states. How do the two of us make the most out of our limited time? How do I convince her to take it a little bit faster?

~ Nellie

Dear Michele,

I am dating a woman who is 19 years younger than myself. She is 28 and I am 47. We have a lot of fun doing things together, but our relationship is strained as I am having a hard time bringing her home to "mom and dad." Her parents are very accepting as they are also from a younger (my) generation so I completely understand them. My parents are in their 70s, hard to talk to about being gay let alone my relationship. I've tried to explain this whole generation gap thing, but she doesn't get it. She thinks I am making her "my dirty little secret." I don't feel this way at all. Any advice?

~ scared

Dear Scared,

Brave of you to write me for advice, as I'm not likely to align myself with your thinking on this one. Seems this issue is more about you and your comfort in your own skin, than about your relationship with your partner or the age of your parents.

Sadly, many parents do reject, disown, and condemn their children for acknowledging their homosexuality. I won't sugarcoat that reality. And while you do not describe this as an issue, I have also known many gay men and lesbians who believe it would be "disrespectful" to share knowledge of their sexual orientation with their parents. And many more who simply fear their parent's disapproval, their disappointment.

I sweetened the deal a bit, (for Teresa and I, of course) by extending the requirements of their extra-good behavior through this afternoon. Hey, we gotta do what we gotta do, that first day of break is high energy stuff (think children on crack, enough said?).

Oh you should see these angels. At dinner last night Mitch wrote a little note that said, "I love you," and gave it to me saying, "after you read this, you give it to mama and, mama, you give it to Cameron." I thought to myself, "Where did he learn about chain letters?"

My partner left me. My world feels like it's spinning out of control. She denies having an affair, but I have found evidence that she's texting another woman A LOT. We have two children. My world feels so out of control. She's a liar and a cheat and I still love her. Is this normal? I don't even know what to do.
~ Spinning

Affairs are like being in a car wreck.

You don't see them coming. You think you are going safely along, and then out of the blue your car is side-swiped and you feel like you can't breathe, you feel like not just your body, but your whole life and all that it stands for and everything you know to be true is spinning out of control and you wonder, will this car ever stop spinning? And if it does, will I survive the impact? And when it does stop spinning you look around and find that you are still alive. Bruised. In pain, but still alive.

Then you start eying the one who hit you, feeling at first concern that they are okay. Fearing how scared they must be, how disoriented and worried they must be. And when you realize they are okay you think, "What the hell were you thinking? How could you be so reckless? Don't you realize there's a kid in this car? This could have been devastating. Where is your compassion? How can you stand there like this is not a big deal?"

Michele,

My son and his fiancée are getting married in June. I'm an MTF transsexual whose been living full-time for nearly 5 years. Both my son and his fiancée are generally accepting and often invite me to social occasions with their friends. His fiancée comes from a well-to-do family and the wedding reception will be at their country club. Since transitioning, I've met her father and mother, and it's quite clear they are very status-oriented.

My son approached me several weeks back and told me that his fiancée asked that I not reveal my relationship to him and his fiancée at the wedding or reception. I'm not a part of the ceremonies, but I am paying for the rehearsal dinner. My initial reaction was disappointment, but I did understand that this is her (and his) day and wanted to respect their wishes. I've been planning to go along with it...

Yesterday, my son told me that I wasn't going to be invited to the bridal shower either. I was disappointed and it made me realize that I hadn't come to grips with my hurt feelings. I want to do what's best for all of us, but I also believe that I need to be as "out there" as possible because I wouldn't have had the life I do if it weren't for the courage of my trans brothers and sisters who've gone before me.

I have lots of thoughts going through my mind about how to handle the situation. Should I just go with the flow and be there for them, but essentially invisible? Should I call them out on it so they'll understand how they've made me feel and then just go with it? Should I just attend the wedding itself, and skip the rehearsal dinner and reception? Or, should I tell them that if they want to invite me, I won't go along with the charade?

Troubled TransParent

Lowen and Spears have taken their interest in non-monogomy a step further by studying 86 non-monogamous, long-term (8+ years) gay male couples. Their research reveals that forty percent of the 86 couples started out with agreements to be open and have maintained this status, while the remaining sixty percent of the couples took an average of 6.5 years to open their relationship. The average length of relationship for the 86 couples in this study is 16.2 years.

While I'm not interested in promoting or discouraging open relationships, I do find it fascinating to consider what makes this arrangement work for so many gay men. Of the 86 couples in the Spears/Lowen research, only one couple is raising young children. This does not surprise me. Raising children is a time and energy consuming experience that will unlikely leave much room for extra play. In an email exchange with Hoff, she explained to me that while they did collect data on parenthood for the couples in their study, they did not separate that data out to examine the relationship between monogamy and parenthood.

According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Kim Smith is fighting for custody of her 10-month old sons whom she had during her two year relationship with their birth mother, Maggie Quale.

The couple split when the boys were just five months old. At which time the donor Shawn Wallace moved in with Quale to help out. Shortly thereafter, a romantic relationship developed between the two, and they are now pleading for the shared right to raise Levi and Max, the boys delivered by Quale ten months ago.

After reading a few different sources, this is what I have pieced together about this case: